…abandoned railroad right of ways? With pictures and history of the abandonment and by who?
Pictures, too? You’d probably have something as thick as an old Official Guide!
I have a copy of a book entitled Right-of-way. It mapped, state by state, the abandoned railroads, arranged by decade of abandonment. Problem is, it was put together in the early 1970s–before Conrail, before deregulation, and before nearly every railroad retrenched. Ten years after it came out it would have been left high and dry.
Pictures? I am not sure how you’d go about illustrating everything. I think that a few before-and-after shots would be nice. Or, in the case of some of the rail-trails, it could be a before, during, and after sequence.
Arranging such a book would be a nightmare. By state? By railroad? By decade (or half-decade)? Each would be valid; each would have problems.
Meanwhile, I have a couple of suggestions: buy the SPV Railroad atlas for the region(s) you’re interested in; the abandonments of the past century are pretty well documented therein. And, if you haven’t done so, join and support the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Their quarterly magazine has lots of illustrations of various trail conversions.
You might want to narrow your scope a little bit, such as by state or region. If you enter Abandoned Railroads in a search engine you’ll find many references. My copy of Lost Railroads of New England lists 363 separate abandonments as of 1989. A nationwide book would be many volumes.
I’d forgotten about the “Ghost Railroads” books by Elmer Sulzer. He had some good-sized books covering Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Again, these books were written before many of the major abandonments.
My last 15 years with the Santa Fe were in the position of Right of Way Agent. If there are specific questions I may be able to respond, at least partially.
A former forestry professor from Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks, Michael Kudish, took on just the railroads of the Adirondacks. The first edition was healthy, the second huge, and for the third, he went to three volumes, each covering about a third of the Adirondacks, plus adding a fourth volume on the Catskill region.
The books are very detailed, with drawings and narrative about the lines and the industries and towns thereon. Professor Kudish has walked or travelled almost all of the lines covered in the books.
Where Did the Tracks Go in the … Adirondacks, being the Western (vol. 1), Central (vol. 2), and Eastern (vol. 3) have been published. The Catskill volume is still in the works.
The NYS DOT turned out a map of rail lines in the state a couple of years ago - it includes abandoned lines, but they are not marked with their lineage.